Dear Dallas, A Letter from Fashion

Dear Dallas,


I recently moved back to this thriving city after twelve years of living in Los Angeles and in the process of reacquainting myself with my birth place I noticed something quite scary; you have no fashion Dallas! I was shocked to watch both men and women walking in and out of popular hot spots throughout this city without a care in the world, or a care about what they looked like. I understand the heat is huge hurtle; believe me, I do. I tell my family everyday that moving back during the summer has been my biggest mistake! I truly forgot what it was like here. But it does not stop me from putting my best foot forward in making myself presentable.

So before we get off on the wrong foot, and I dive into the holier than thou pool, let me give you some background so that maybe you understand where I am coming from. When I left Dallas I was twenty-one years old. Deep Ellum was the hot spot in Dallas and Uptown consisted of a Hard Rock Café and an Espirit Outlet Store with a few of the Dallas standards like the Mansion at Turtle Creek and the Reunion Tower mixed in. American Airlines Arena and the W Hotel had yet to be built, our NBA super star Dirk Nowitzki was the ninth overall draft pick to the Milwaukee Bucks and people still bought CD’s.

Coming back, it was an overwhelming pleasure driving into Knox/Henderson area and Oak Cliff and getting stuck in bumper to bumper traffic and watching people walk the streets from one place to another. I felt the electricity this city can generate and I was so excited to be back. But once I actually walked into the bars, everything I so firmly felt was completely shattered and I was simply disappointed. I felt like I hadn’t left at all and I was back in a college bar. I was choking on khaki and polo shirts, jersey dresses and flip-flops. And this was a Saturday night! Seriously, it was not even business casual.

I thought to myself, maybe it is the places I am going to or the crowd on that particular night. But after a recent Saturday evening out in Uptown for a friend’s birthday party, as I found myself elbow to elbow with men in their 20’s to their late 30’s with baseball caps and khaki shorts, and I deduced that it wasn’t just a fluke. This is just the fashion of Dallas. As I waited for someone to walk by with a fraternity plastered on a t-shirt or a baseball cap; or both, I realized something astonishing. I realized that it had been almost an hour and a half and I had yet to notice another woman, outside of my party, to walk in with heels on. At this point I completely ceased participation with the rest of my party and occupied myself with the reality show of my surroundings. I started wondering why the dress code was what it was and if anyone had taken a stand. I wondered why the women didn’t work harder on their boyfriends/husbands and vice versa. I have always felt that you are your own personal billboard and just as we are to “Keep Austin Weird”, I have always felt we are to “Keep Dallas Shallow”.

I decided to take my thoughts to the streets and ask my group how they felt. I dumped out all that I had been thinking and without the objective of validation. I truly wanted to know why. Amidst the collective thought that everyone was “over that tired look”, tangents of stereotype’s and caste systems where thrown about. Then a friend replied back simply with the most logical answer ever; she said, “Sometimes it’s just easier to walk into a bar where everyone dresses the same.”

Dallas, you are the ninth largest city in the United States, second in Texas. You are a metropolitan town with more restaurants per capita than in New York City. This is a friendly town wrapped up around a bustling skyline, that’s ever growing. This town also houses some of the largest corporate headquarters in the nation. You know how to dress for a job interview; you know how to dress for your job, what makes meeting a new friend or a new “friend” any different? There are some old adages that still work, and the one that comes to mind now is that you never get a second chance to make a first impression. If you want to impress a potential boss, a potential client; you dress for success. The same goes for meeting a potential date.

I hope we can still be friends Dallas. Stay shallow and so will I.